Dear President Trump: Here’s How to Make Space Great Again

December 15, 2016

(Credit: NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts)

By Brent Ziarnick, Peter Garretson, Everett Dolman, and Coyote Smith

President-elect Donald Trump often says that Americans no longer dream and must do so again. Nowhere can dreams be more inspiring and profitable than in space. But today, expanding space enterprise is not foremost on the minds of Americans or military strategists. As a recent CNN special showed, defense thinkers feel embattled in space, focused on protecting our existing investments rather than developing new ones that seize strategic advantage.

Major Brent Ziarnick, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Garretson, Everett Dolman, and Coyote Smith are members of the United States Air Force’s Space Horizons team. Space Horizons is a research group chartered by the Air University to explore the future of American space activity. The opinions herein are those of the authors alone and are not necessarily the views of Air University, the U.S. Air Force, or the U.S. government.

The first step to make space great again is for the United States to offer a constructive vision that can satisfy many American space needs, including defense. The Trump administration has an opportunity to transcend pessimism in space and focus America where it thrives: aggressive yet peaceful competition. Interested readers can view our complete recommendations, but a new Trump national space policy should declare:

The U.S. will be the first nation to mine an asteroid. The trillions of dollars in mineral wealth from asteroids can fuel a vibrant in-space economy capable of lifting up all humankind. America must lead this process.

The U.S. will be the first nation to extract resources from Earth’s moon to operate a commercial transportation service to and from the lunar surface. Our moon offers vast resources and tremendous logistical advantages for the development of that in-space economy. The U.S. will conduct research and establish public-private partnerships to advance the technology and the development of self-sustaining commercial services. The U.S. should also commit to being an early customer of such services, and it should take a leadership role in helping private industry develop businesses based on lunar exploration.

The U.S. will be the first nation to operate a propellant depot and on-orbit refueling service. Being able to refuel on orbit is key to an agile and fully reusable space transportation system. The United States will be the first to prove this technology and offer it as a commercial service to others.

The U.S. will be the first nation to operate a private space station. A thriving space economy must provide broad, affordable access to space across society, and it must have ordinary citizens living and working there permanently. As someone deeply knowledgeable about the hotel industry, the president-elect might understand the value of a U.S.-branded orbital tower.

The U.S. will operate the first fleet of fully reusable launch vehicles. Central to assured access for our citizenry is the ability to come and go to space with aircraft-like operations. A fully reusable architecture, technically feasible but never championed by the government, makes private spaceflight and even greater projects possible. America will provide the transportation system that fuels the larger global ecosystem of innovation.

The U.S. will build the first profitable solar power satellite. No single innovation in space could be as transformational as unlocking the vast potential of space-based solar energy generation to power Earth’s electrical needs; that could provide the hundreds of terawatts of renewable energy necessary to provide first-world living standards to the entire planet in a green and environmentally sustainable manner. The logistics system to create this space-power grid would require moving millions of metric tons of satellites to geostationary orbit and, consequently, will be orders of magnitude larger than any envisioned government-centric space program.

The U.S. will build the first comprehensive system to defend Earth from hazardous asteroids and comets. This planetary defense capability will initially start small, providing adequate defense against both 50-meter and 300-meter diameter objects with years of advance warning, and be built to provide comprehensive protection against extinction-level events. The United States will design, construct, and seek to test this capability in the current administration, and aim to maintain a standby global defense capability soon thereafter.

The U.S. will fly the first mission to another star. Interstellar spaceflight will be the ultimate expression of humanity mastering space travel. The American people must be the first to be ready.

This list of goals sounds audacious, perhaps outrageous, but it is entirely within the capability and character of the people who built the Transcontinental Railroad, the Hoover Dam, and conquered a continent. Americans are leaders in every one of these fields. It is only necessary for the new President to unleash America’s potential — once unleashed, American innovators will move these dreams toward reality faster than anyone can imagine.

comments 18

Space mining is absolute pointless except for a few ores if you do not intend to use the raw material to actually build something in space as well. Same goes for Moon or any other planetary mining. It is so much cheaper to get it from the crust of earth and that includes deep sea mining. Otherwise the cost per ton mined is astronomical unless you have a space elevator to bring stuff back to earth.

I’d like to know more about this orbital solar light funnel depicted at the top of the article. I’ve seen similar illustrations before but I’d like to know how exactly that shape does the job better than a flat sheet of panels pointed directly at the sun.

“The basic concept of SPS-ALPHA is to form an exceptionally large space platform from an extremely large number of small, high modular elements, where only a small number of types of modules are used. … SPS-ALPHA is a biologically inspired concept: in a manner analogous to a hive of bees, a large number of smaller modules (each individually ‘intelligent’) will physically assemble to form a large satellite.” (The modules are packed into a small space for efficient transport and later assembly.) — John C. Mankins, SPS-ALPHA: The First Practical Solar Power Satellite via Arbitrarily Large Phased Array, NASA NIAC, 15 September 2012, https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/716070main_Mankins_2011_PhI_SPS_Alpha.pdf

” The U.S. will build the first comprehensive system to defend Earth from hazardous asteroids and comets. ”

I never thought I’d say that but thank you Trump!

Finally someone who anticipates a threat mageure. By the way, I do not say bravo to environmentalists who claim to defend life without worrying about the asteroids that could destroy all life on Earth.

This is such jingoistic non sense. All the nations of the world need to come together to do all of these things in a collaborative way. This is the only way forward. We must throw off our ancient ways of ethnocentrism, xenophobia and empire building or we will certainly self destruct. PS – A really good read about asteroid mining is Ben Bova – The Asteroid Wars.

Our greatest achievement, the Moon Landing, was an exclusively American project with virtually no outside help. Of the many potential journeys to Mars, all serious ones are American. Unfortunately this is not science fiction where Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Iran are equal partners in space exploration. If something significant is going to be done, for the foreseeable future it will be done by the US.

And Von Braun was American. That’s a huge strength we have. Some instinctual “Nativists” don’t accept that an immigrant that accepts American citizenship is “really” an American. Mostly that’s a foreign issue, but certainly some Americans feel that way. Not most, though. So yup, both the father and granddaddy were ‘Merkins.

Every winner generates his challengers. Moreover, it is better because this competition is better than the resentment of people who feel out of the race in everything and can therefore turn to violence. Yes, there are countries of which it is unimaginable that they turn to space tomorrow … But nothing forbids Europe less shy, Russia less ineffective, China more advanced … And Do not forget India!

Out of a desire for knowledge, because I hope and believe possible that human life is indefinitely extended, because the sun is going to die and we may not be able to prevent it and we must be ready to emigrate, I want ardently competition and collaboration between as many countries as possible, and also private players.
The judgment of Paris was vexing: do not French do better than we do in wine? But this has awakened the wine sector. We thought ourselves invincible. It seems to me that the Americans think they are unsurpassable in space now that the Russians are unavailable. Error ! The most obvious for me … Means that increase, ambition but little territorial ambition (like China) more scientific tradition (China has long had only technique, certainly advanced, but no science): India

Over 99% of the natural resources exist outside of the Earth’s gravity well. The first trillionaires will be those who invest in space mining. Soon over 10% of the US jobs will be lost due to driverless vehicle technology (not to mention drone package delivery). Logically, the space industry will be the economic sector to pick up the slack. Also, nationalism ought to demand the US be a leader in this gold rush.

One other thing not mentioned in this article: a top priority ought to be 3D printing technology – converting extraterrestrial minerals into 3D toner to print more mining and processing equipment. Exponential production. Nothing is more important than achieving exponential production capability – it ought to be a top US military and industrial goal.

A sleeping invention by Dr. Robert L. Carroll (1910-1997) a mathematical physicist – could open space to human exploration far beyond present ideas. Carroll’s Ultra-Cold Disruption (UCD) is a revolutionary alternative to any form of fission or fusion. The fuel is very small amounts of ordinary water. There is no radioactive waste. Carroll was aiming for the stars. His alternative to relativity proposed the maximum speed of a spacecraft is 20 million times that of light. If it proves practical, UCD could initially be used to generate power. Carroll believed it would be safe enough for vehicles. It might also replace chemical rockets with a system that cannot explode and would be much lighter and cheaper. That would allow humans to settle in space in great numbers. AESOP Energy intends to prototype the breadbasket sized reactor. A possible early application is replacement of fuel in an 18 wheel truck. A spacecraft design firm, once convinced it is worth pursuing, has indicated interest in exploring the replacement of chemical rockets with UCD. The invention depends on room temperature superconductors. Polymer Ultraconductors are equivalents – proven by four successful government Small Business Innovation Research contracts. Once UCD proves practical, a nanoscale spacecraft can be launched aimed at a star. If it quickly returns with data and photographs consistent with the Hubble telescope, Carroll will have been proven correct. See: aesopinstitute.org look under MORE.

Great business proposal, realisation of which could provide a problem that all would like to accomplish. I had starting the Artificial Labour Leasing, Inc for designing and organize production of artificial subjective systems for accomplishing, among others,
tasks connected with space mining, and begin a process of building a spaceship-shelter for all Earth inhabitants.
Building an energy harvesting industry in Space could be accomplished by building an industrial orbital infrastructure used raw materials mined in Space for further expansion. That could lovering amount of materials transported from Earth to an orbit.

I think you’re right, and is there a singularity-savvy guy who has some business experience – say, having started businesses that have been successful several times, and has several patents that are moneymakers?